Giving Customers a Lift
Papé Rents delivers top-notch rental equipment to industrial and construction markets
When John Crivello started his career, he was “just a regular old parts guy.”
In 1967, he was a young man working at a Seattle-based dealership called Hyster, which specialized in forklifts and material-handling equipment.
As the years passed, John transitioned to the company’s service department, taking care of customers who brought their forklifts in for repair. In those days, Hyster strictly sold, serviced and provided parts for forklifts. But John saw an opportunity.
“We were loaning out our equipment to customers who needed repairs, and it occurred to me that we should be charging for it,” he says. “That’s how I ended up in the rental operations business.”
Thus, John went from being “just a regular old parts guy” to a leader of something entirely new at the time. He continued in that role until 1990 when Papé, a fourth-generation, family-owned company based in Eugene, Oregon, bought out the Hyster dealerships in Washington and Oregon.
And with that acquisition, Papé Rents was born.
In the decades since, John has helped build Papé’s rental operation—a subsidiary of parent company Papé Group—into the top-notch industrial and construction rental equipment powerhouse that it is today.
In western Washington and Alaska, John has built a team of rental coordinators, salespeople, technicians and truck drivers that delivers end-to-end solutions such as sales, rental equipment, service, repairs, fleet management and parts replacement to customers. The Papé Group has more than 100 locations, serving nine western states throughout the U.S.
Papé Rents provides a variety of forklift and aerial equipment options to support the construction of major infrastructure projects. It primarily serves the trucking, material handling, warehousing, agriculture, construction and forestry industries, as well as the expansion of top companies such as Amazon, Microsoft and Boeing.
These days, according to John, “Papé Rents moves hundreds of pieces of equipment per day within the Greater Seattle area alone.”
Building the Business
Back in 1990, getting Papé’s newly acquired rental business up and running was exciting for John.
“I was like a little kid in a candy store,” he reflects. “At Hyster, we were held to strict guidelines. Then Papé came in, took the lid off it and said, ‘We want you to grow this thing and you’ve got a blank check to go do it.’ It’s what I’d always wanted.”
There was just one problem: he had no sales team. So, he improvised.
“I went around to all the rental companies in the Northwest and asked who they were re-renting from when they ran out of their equipment,” he says. “They were all renting from their competitors, so I said, ‘I’m no threat to you and I’m no salesman—what if you come in and rent from us?’”
The tactic worked quite nicely. In the following years, companies including United Rentals, Sunbelt Rentals and Star Rentals were all loading up Papé’s equipment.
In 2000, things started to slow down, and as John looked out at a yard full of equipment, he decided to send his new Rental Coordinator, Erik Strecker, into the field to see if he could drum up some business.
Erik remembers that time well.
“Our culture here is to treat people the way you want to be treated, and your customers are the most important. That’s instilled all the way down to our mechanics and delivery teammates.” Erik Strecker, Rental Territory Manager, Papé Rents
“I hated it,” he says, laughing. “When I first started there were no customers, and I didn’t know anything about sales. But I saw early on that there was room for growth. At Papé Rents, your only limitations are yourself and how hard you’re willing to work.”
Erik took a pay cut to work on commission for Papé Rents. He remembers getting The Blue Book out, starting on “A” and cold-calling potential customers for eight to 10 hours a day. In the end, one out of every 100 people he met with wanted to work with his team.
“The first year was such a struggle, but also so rewarding. Those first six months I didn’t sell anything or make customers, so I was starving,” Erik says. “But the last six months things picked up, and it just skyrocketed from there. That’s one of the proudest moments of my life, that I stuck it out and made it work. I was the test dummy that paved the way for the development of a full sales team.”
That team expanded to 75 employees in western Washington alone, growth that John credits in part to Erik’s tenacity and their joint efforts to lay the groundwork together.
Today, Erik has moved up the ranks to become Rental Territory Manager. “He came here as a green-nosed kid working in our service department and is now one of the most successful salespeople within all of Papé,” he says. “He’s been at the top of the leaderboard for years and has been with me close to 20 years now.”
Colossal Construction
That kind of commitment and longevity is important as the company strives to build the Papé name across the West Coast. The average tenure for employees at Papé Rents is 15-20 years.
Such tenure is also appreciated by a loyal base of long-term customers who’ve come to know the team by name—both in-house and in the field—and to rely on Papé Rents’ equipment to handle large-scale infrastructure projects.
One of those loyal customers is the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Facility, a U.S. Navy shipyard that covers 179 acres in the Puget Sound region of Washington. This client relies on Papé Rents to cover all of its equipment needs.
“We’ve had that contract for 25 years,” John says. “Every five years they go out for a re-bid and we’ve successfully maintained that business. When they send out their evaluations of companies that they do business with, we’ve always gotten the highest marks. I’m proud of that.”
To demonstrate its mutual commitment, Papé Rents opened a new facility in Poulsbo, Washington, in January 2020 to be closer to the Navy and better serve customers in that territory.
Erik, now with decades of experience behind him, also has developed longtime contracts. He cites customers such as Apex Steel and GLY Construction, Inc. when considering career highlights.
“Those were two big accounts that I’ve had for years and years now, that use me exclusively on all their projects,” he says.
He’s also landed contracts for projects such as Expedia Group’s new headquarters, a sprawling $900 million waterfront campus in Seattle, and Overlake Medical Center and the new REI headquarters—both in Bellevue, Washington, as well as work on Washington State Route 520.
The size of those projects makes him realize how far he’s come.
“I remember getting excited if I was on a $100,000 job,” he says. “Now I’m on jobs that are over a billion dollars and it just keeps growing. I’ve even reached out and found business outside of the U.S., in places like in Russia and Papua New Guinea.”
Erik can’t help but credit John for the division’s success.
“I really believe it’s thanks to our leadership, from John Crivello down,” he says. “He has done an amazing job of building the right environment, hiring great people and putting them in the right places. Our culture here is to treat people the way you want to be treated, and your customers are the most important. That’s instilled all the way down to our mechanics and delivery teammates.”
Caring for the Community
While the team members have been busy helping to build major infrastructure the last several years, they’ve applied their “do unto others” approach by supporting their local communities as well.
Within the Greater Seattle area, the company annually holds food and toy drives for Northwest Harvest and Marine Toys for Tots, donates to Community Homes, provides equipment to benefit Habitat for Humanity projects, supports United Way during the organization’s annual Day of Caring, and holds various fundraisers throughout the year for different organizations.
For John, the effort closest to his heart is Work of Honor, a Veteran networking and hiring event that the Papé Rents team hosts two to three times a year.
“We have a lot of veterans who work for me and throughout all of Papé, and they have great skills,” John says. “In support of Work of Honor, we invite businesses to come and set up booths, and then we invite veterans in the community to come and talk to companies like Amazon and Google and others, to try to find work for them.”
It’s been popular for veterans and businesses alike, bringing in more than 300 people per event. As someone who has served in the military himself, John believes the effort is crucial.
“We need to make sure we are looking out for those who have served this country and do everything we can to help them get into a working environment where their skill sets may be put to use in different parts of the community around them,” he says.
Erik is also involved in veteran-related efforts. He frequently goes on fishing trips through Gotcha 6, a nonprofit apparel line where the proceeds go to help veterans who are struggling with PTSD.
“I think it’s always good to give back,” he says. “It doesn’t have to be just financial. It can be as simple as helping people get back into the world and do the things they like to do. That may sound small to some people, but it’s huge for [helping others].”
Having a Ball
In 2020, the broader Papé Group will celebrate 82 years, and with more than 52 years in the business himself, John can look back and smile.
In that time, he’s left a legacy, building a business model not only for the rental business in the Northwest, but across all other divisions in all locations as well.
“We’ve gone from nothing to having rental and division managers throughout the company that I’ve helped mentor and set the stage for what they’re doing today,” he says. “I’m most proud of that—that something I started is now incorporated within the whole Papé Group.”
That model has worked. Papé Rents has seen incredible growth and is the industry leader in the Northwest, and John can’t help but be grateful for the success.
“The Papé family has not only provided me, but everyone who works at this company, with an environment that’s second to none in the industry,” he says. “They give us all the tools to make us successful, and those tools for success are instilled in everyone who works here.”
Despite his success, John continues to look for more opportunities. The team has entered into the aerial, telehandler and portable air and power businesses to serve an expanding construction market, with plans to add equipment to support the underground construction market as well.
“From the beginning, I was driven to be No. 1 in our marketplace,” he says. “That drive, even after all these years, is still in me.”
When asked what’s next, John chuckles.
“I think I get asked that every day,” he says. “Every time I think, ‘Maybe this is the year I’m going to retire,’ I get talked out of it! I guess I’m going to do this until it’s not fun anymore. But right now, I’m having a ball.”